Customer
Humanitas Research Hospital
Headquarters
Milan, Italy
Industry
Healthcare and Education
Employees
3000+
On the Pieve Emanuele (Milan) campus of Humanitas University, the university founded by Humanitas Research Hospital, is the 3D Innovation Lab. The futuristic 3D printing laboratory located in the brand new Innovation Building aims to serve the three souls of this important healthcare institution: research, training and the clinic. Here, in fact, 3D printing is at the service of every activity of the hospital and the university: "The great advantage of our centre," explains Paolo Oliva, Head of Research Technology Management and 3D Innovation Lab, "is that it is not the brainchild of a single doctor who uses it for his or her exclusive needs, but rather a precise institutional strategy, namely that of being available to all Humanitas departments and wards. The laboratory has its origins in 2019 when the need arose to print accessories for electromedical equipment and components for intensive care. "But it was only with the advent of the Innovation Building dedicated to Roberto Rocca that the 3D Innovation Lab officially saw the light of day in its current form," Oliva continues.
Today, the lab serves the Humanitas research world with a cell biology bioprinting centre that provides bioscaffold printing in biomaterials for the production of three-dimensional cell constructs. But it is on the clinical and university side that 3D printing is witnessing the greatest innovations: thanks to the acquisition of a Stratasys J850 DAP printer, the laboratory is able to produce anatomical models that replicate physiological, mechanical but above all pathological characteristics with a very high level of fidelity: "This is made possible by the fact that this printer can mix different resins so as to characterise individual anatomical sections in a realistic manner," continues Oliva. This makes it possible to put models of organs and tissues that can be operated on in the hands of students and residents, thus reducing learning curves. "Before these innovations, training required more time and practical training only took place in the final moments of the course, and not without difficulty, as it required, for example, access to cadaver labs, which are few in Italy and very expensive".
But that's not all: thanks to 3D printing, it is possible to faithfully reproduce anatomy as well as pathology. Starting from imaging acquisitions, it is possible to recreate avatars of organs and tissues of individual patients containing real pathological elements, such as tumour masses. "This allows the surgeon to work on a realistic anatomical, tactile and biomechanical support and to perform pre-surgical training, improving outcomes. This type of approach is particularly useful in complex clinical cases, as happened in a recent case reported in the news in which a young woman suffering from a malignant tumour of the peripheral nerve sheaths was successfully operated on in Humanitas thanks to the 3D reproduction of her heart and tumour mass. The printed model makes it possible to assess the anatomy, actual dimensions, mechanical properties and interaction between the structures and vessels, all parameters that are difficult to understand in 2D.
In all this, the advantage of Stratasys technology is clear: not only does it allow the mixing of different resins to obtain faithful reproductions of each fabric, but it is also particularly fast. "For this reason," concludes Oliva, "it requires little post-processing, which, combined with the high printing speed, makes it possible to arrive at the finished model in a very short time. There are currently more than 200 models produced by the 3D Innovation Lab for all hospital and university activities.
